


made of flowers

by yawena



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Flirting, George is hurt, George's mom is in this way too much, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, a crumb of Badboyhalo, because i am pretentious, the overuse of words and phrases, there's no romance involving her tho don't worry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 10:22:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29932005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yawena/pseuds/yawena
Summary: “Why do you always say my name like that, Dream?” He regretted asking the question while he was asking it, but he couldn’t turn back, so he just cringed and waited for the embarrassment to be over.Dream actually stopped in front of George in Minecraft, the hunt seemingly forgotten as Dream answered, “like what?”There was true bewilderment in his voice; for such a smart man he could be pretty dumb sometimes.“Like it’s a prayer,” he whispered, almost ashamed to say it. “Even when you’re teasing or taunting me, it’s like it’s a prayer.” He remembered his grandfather used to say the lord’s prayer like Dream said George; like it meant something, like it was something important.His grandfather died when he was in sixth form. No one prayed to God anymore in his family.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 20
Kudos: 189
Collections: how tf do i find this





	1. very small and afraid of people and noise

**Author's Note:**

> ah!!! dnf brain rot is real and this is the result of it.  
> enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> George had been expecting it to hurt, to be hard, to be confusing and terrifying and terrible, and he thought he’d want to give up. But when the day came, it wasn’t hard, it didn’t hurt.
> 
> Dream wasn’t hard like other people were. He didn’t hurt.

George had never been a brave person.  
  
When he was little, he would cry at the sound of fireworks or broken glasses. He hated ball games, concerts, anything _loud _.__ It got to the point where he no longer wanted to go to school and would cry every morning before going.  
  
People were hard, and loud, and computers and coding and video games were neither of those things. They weren’t hard, or they were, but not in the same sense that people were. Coding was hard, but in the end there was a satisfying _'no errors detected'_ message, and the code worked; the computer worked. Computers weren’t hard, because there was an answer for the things they did that weren’t right. You could fix computers, you could fix code, you could fix buggy games. You couldn’t fix people.  
  
George was living proof of that.  
  
His mother was always at a loss with what to do with him when he was a teenager. He spent all his time in his coding teacher’s classroom, spending hours working on code unbothered. Other teachers would come looking for him, sometimes even administrators, but his coding teacher never let them past the door. (He was always thankful for that teacher, who seemed to just understand that he needed space and time and a place to just be and that anyone else would hurt more than help, no matter their intentions.)  
  
He failed almost every class he took besides coding that year, but made it up online in the summer. He did that for the rest of his schooling, and passed with flying colors when he learned online. For his last year, he was completely remote, and he passed with flying colors then too.  
  
For a while, George never said anything at all to his mother, really. Or anyone. But he loved them, and they knew it, and he knew it, and it was enough. He was too afraid to open his mouth and speak, to make noise, to be loud and demanding and take up space, but that was okay, for a while.  
  
So no, by all accounts, George was not brave. And he _hated_ loudness, and people.  
  
But one day when he was 19, he was coding in his room and his mother came in and sat on his bed. This wasn’t abnormal, per se, as she did that sometimes just to be in his presence. But she seemed troubled, the thick emotions rolling off of her in waves pungent and _distracting_.  
  
The code did not run, but he saved and closed the program anyway and faced her, lying on his bed and staring at his off-white ceiling with a blank expression. The chair creaked as he shifted, and they sat in silence for a while before his mother spoke quietly. She always spoke quietly when he was around, laughed quietly when he was around. But sometimes he’d hear her boisterous, raucous, happy laugh or her loud shouts of pure joy from downstairs just faintly and smile, because she deserved to laugh like that. Even if she couldn’t do it around him.  
  
“George?” She said softly, and he nodded and made a soft noise so she knew he was listening. “George, I used to be afraid of the dark.”  
  
His mother didn’t often talk about herself, especially not about what she was afraid of, worried she’d give him the same fear.  
  
“I used to be so afraid of the dark I would go to bed before the sun went down and I trained myself to sleep until after the sun was up. I would miss school events, dinners, nights out, family nights, all of it, to sleep and escape the dark. I slept with the lights on, and if anyone turned them off, I’d have a meltdown. Cry and scream and make then promise not to do it again.”  
  
George didn’t like hearing this; he shifted and closed up inside of himself, drew up the drawbridge that had connected him to the rest of the world. He still listened, but it was vacant, and she knew it.  
  
“I was so afraid that my father caught me on the way to go to bed one day and said, ‘Come here.’ So I did, and he locked me in the closet with no lights or anything and left. And I cried and screamed and begged, but he was gone. And eventually, the tears stopped, and I wasn’t upset anymore.”  
  
There was a long pause, after that. So long he thought his mother may have fallen asleep, but her eyes were open. So he waited.  
  
Eventually she continued, “when he came back in the morning, I wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore. After that, I’d stay up into the late hours of the night, keep my overhead light turned off, only have a candle going for some light.” George didn’t like where this was going. He drew his knees up and wrapped his arms around them, allowing his nose to rest between his knees so only his eyes remained visible; putting a barrier between them just in case she was going to lock him in a room with a crying baby for a day or something. Just in case.  
  
“I’m not gonna do that to you, George. I would never do that to you. But I want you to know how I got over my fear. It wasn’t the dark that I was afraid of, it was what could be hiding in it. So I became scarier than anything hiding in the dark, and I was never afraid of the dark again.”  
  
George didn’t know how that translated over to his fear of people and noise, but he listened anyway.  
  
“And I didn’t learn martial arts while I was in that closet or anything. I am not stronger than things that might hide in the dark, but I am scarier. In my head, I’m scarier.”  
  
He still didn’t see the connection, so opted to stay silent. She closed her eyes, looking more tired than he’d ever seen her, and he almost said something, almost got off the chair and hugged her. But she spoke once more before he could.  
  
“I know that you can’t be scarier than noise, or people, or anything else you’re afraid of. But the lesson still stands. You have to become bigger than the fear. You have to be louder than the noise that scares you, you have to be confident that you can be friends with people. It’s not easy, and I’m not suggesting it is. But you’re allowed to be loud, George. You’re allowed to be different than you are. It’s fine if you’re not, but you’re allowed to be.”  
  
She left, then, and George sat there dumbly for a second, processing, then clambered off his chair and raced into the hall and almost slipped on the wood floors because of his speed and socked feet, but he hugged his mother tightly, and it was worth it. He hugged her and poured all of his love into it, every single good particle of his being. He hoped she understood, that he appreciated her so much, and loved her more than anything.  
  
George was still afraid, after that, still a coward, still not brave. But he was waiting for the day that he locked himself in a room with a crying baby, metaphorically, and it wasn’t the time yet.  
  
And George had been expecting it to hurt, to be hard, to be confusing and terrifying and terrible, and he thought he’d want to give up. But when the day came, it wasn’t hard, it didn’t hurt.  
  
Dream wasn’t hard like other people were. He didn’t hurt.  
  
Dream didn’t actually know that George used to be afraid of noise and people. He had no idea, because Dream was just effortlessly wonderful and he seemed to like George for some inexplicable reason, and so he just carried George along. He was the closet and the dark, the locked room and crying baby in his case actually, but it wasn’t so terrible, he found. Not when it was Dream.  
  
With Dream, he would scream and laugh and be louder than he’d ever thought possible, honestly, and it was just effortless.  
  
The first time he’d screamed, out of pure frustration while they were playing Minecraft and he’d been killed four times in a row because of several inconveniently placed creepers, his mother had run up the stairs and assumed he’d hurt himself, thought she needed to call for an ambulance. He’d muted his mic and shook his head softly, apologizing for worrying her and saying that he’d just gotten too worked up about a game and that it wouldn’t happen again.  
  
It happened many more times, his loud shrieks and barks of laughter and his mother sometimes stood outside his door and cried, because even when he was yelling out of frustration and anger, he was _yelling_.  
  
And it was at real people who loved him and made him feel safe. It didn’t hurt her that he couldn’t be that way around her, because she just wanted him to feel safe and if it wasn’t with her, it wasn’t with her. George loved her dearly, and she knew it, so it didn’t bother her.  
  
And after a while, it began to seep into his real life. He’d shout at his siblings when they knocked into him instead of recoiling and hiding. He’d laugh when his mother tripped over the cat instead of staring with vacant eyes while everyone else poked fun at her. There was life in him where there hadn’t been before, a joy and a spark where there had been dying embers before.  
  
There was love in the places where fear used to reside, and she would forever thank his friends for that. Forever thank Dream for that.  
  
She watched the flowers grow from the dead earth that once was George, and revelled in the sweet scent of it that permeated her house. Even if it was loud and crazy and he never left or spent time with them.  
  
He was made of flowers, and she could bear the rest of it because he was made of flowers, and that’s all she’d ever wanted.  
  
And it wasn’t exactly that Dream had planted them, because he hadn’t. He’d helped heal the dirt, helped find the seeds, helped keep the blossoms watered, but George had done all the work. And she was so proud of her son for that.  
  
So when the discussions of Dream turned from rambles about his block-clutches and amazing pvp skills to how smart and funny and amazing he was and this story he’d told and _'what does that even mean? He said it so weirdly, too'_ , she wasn’t surprised, nor disappointed. She indulged both sides of it, and loved both versions of her conversations with her son.  
  
“George, George, let me meet your mom!” She heard through the speakers of her son’s phone one day and grinned.  
  
“Hello, Dream,” she said from the dishwasher, quickly pulling open the racks to put her bowl in.  
  
“Hey George’s Mom! Nice to meet you!” It was a black screen, mostly, but she saw herself in the little corner of the screen as the phone was thrust at her and smiled at it anyway.  
  
“Nice to meet you too, Dream! I’ve heard quite a lot about you, I think he’s told the story about you peeing the bed so many times I could recite it in my sleep,” she grinned, not being able to resist the opportunity to embarrass the both of them, and suddenly the phone was being wrenched away from her by her blushing son. She slid the racks back into the dishwasher and shut the door, the remnants of a smile lingering on her face.  
  
“Okay, that’s enough of my mum, never mind.” George said hurriedly, and noises of protest crackled from the speaker.  
  
“Oh come on now Gogy, I like your mother. She’s brave, like you.” Dream had no idea that George had never in his life believed he was brave, the thought had never even crossed his mind. But George’s blinding smile didn’t care that he didn’t realize the weight of his words, the rush of utter delight through his veins didn’t care, the laugh bubbling up from his gut didn’t care. It only knew that Dream was proud of him. It only knew that Dream thought he was brave.  
  
“Shut up, _Clay_. I have to go anyway, I am in desperate need of some new t-shirts.” George held up his mask as if to show proof, and Dream sighed.  
  
George’s mother had long left the kitchen, but their conversation carried through the halls. She didn’t pay much attention to the words, only to the smile in his voice as he spoke them. She shut the door to her room with a soft smile.  
  
“Can’t you just order them online?” Dream groaned, seemingly pouting. George laughed quickly.  
  
“It’s like four t-shirts, it’ll take me like ten minutes total. I don’t feel like paying for shipping when there’s a store five seconds down the street.” George explained, and Dream continued to whine for a bit before they hung up, miffed that they couldn’t play Minecraft together for a whole hour while he went out.  
  
George usually got blue shirts, because he couldn’t tell apart the other colors well enough to know which ones he was getting, and occasionally he got white shirts as well because they were a staple, but as he entered the store, he caught sight of a rack of clothes that made him stop. They all looked yellow, to him, but for some reason, he saw them and just had to know if they were yellow or green.  
  
He asked an attendant, who looked slightly confused but answered with ‘green’, and he grabbed a couple in his size before continuing on to grab two new blue t-shirts and a white one.  
  
He thought he could draw a little smiley face on one of the green ones and surprise Dream, since George’s merch hadn’t made it to his country yet. He grinned just thinking about the way Dream would laugh, shocked, before commenting slyly that green looked good on George. He would dare George to wear it on stream, and George would accept and then lose the subsequent game of Minecraft tag and be forced to actually do it. Sapnap would make fun of him relentlessly, and Dream wouldn’t stop making comments about how green was his color and he should wear green more often, and it would be perfect. And it was.  
  
There were some things that just didn’t need to be said, and the way George felt about Clay was one of those things. Sapnap and Badboyhalo and even Tommy saw it, but it didn’t need to be talked about. It could just hang in the balance, in the ocean between George and the person who helped him become made of flowers.  
  
Until it couldn’t.


	2. he was(n't) brave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’ve watched you fall in love with him and then be okay with that fact and I stayed out of it because I didn’t know what to say or what to do, but then I watched Dream fall in love with you and just do it so casually he didn’t even notice and…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyo! just wanted to stop in to say that i am in no way trying to judge heat waves or it's characterization, the only reason why it was brought up was to highlight the differencvecs in character, and because they bring it up all the time in streams :))

The stream that really started it all was a normal stream by all standards; lot’s of flirting and joking and fun and George was just as loud as normal. There were lots of jokes about the Heat Waves fanfic, despite the fact that the other person involved in the ship hadn’t even read it and didn’t know what actually happened in it. George did, though, had read it by himself without Sapnap there, and had enjoyed it, actually. Not only did it indulge the feelings he had for his oblivious friend, it also was just well written and enjoyable. Even if it made him more than slightly sad. 

Dream had helped him become made of flowers, and if Dream ever felt the way he did in Heat Waves; all exhausted and confused and depressed and not like himself at all; if he ever felt like that, George thought he would swim across the goddamn ocean by himself to get to his best friend. He would lock his past self in a room with a crying baby for days and days if it meant Dream felt better, he would log off of Minecraft forever and never post a single thing on social media ever again, he would give up his favorite food and his success and his  _ life _ to make sure Clay was okay. 

And Clay would do the same for him, had told him as much before. But it still wasn’t enough. It still didn’t mean what it meant for George. He’d realized that and come to terms with it and understood it, but it still stung sometimes. 

It had started out with a joke Sapnap made about Heat Waves and how angsty Dream was in it. Dream responded with a shocked, “wait, really?”

George had jumped in to say that yes, he was very distraught and depressed at the end of Heat Waves, but hopeful, he supposed. Dream went quiet at the revelation, and Badboyhalo tried to change the subject, but it didn’t work.

“What did you do?” Dream asked, and the call went quiet as George waited for his brain to catch up. 

“In Heat Waves? I was kinda the reason for it, partly, but I didn’t help you as much as I should have, if I was, you know, me.” He was well written, as a character, but George just couldn’t imagine hearing Dream say some of those things and not absolutely freaking out on him. He wasn’t always the best at sharing his feelings, but he would tell Dream everything he’d ever felt about him if it would help him. He’d do anything, and it made George slightly anxious to even think about Dream being that broken and hurt. Dream had saved him, once upon a time, and he would do anything to save Dream too if he needed it.

“How should you have reacted, then?” Sapnap and Bad were just watching, waiting, and he was glad it was Bad who was streaming and not him, because he wasn’t sure he could manage both of those things in his head. The person he was supposed to be on stream and the person he was when it was just him and Dream were separate entities, and it already felt like he was blurring the lines between them. 

“I don’t know. Some of the shit you say-sorry Bad-” he interrupted himself to apologize to his friend who he knew was about to ‘language’ him like Captain America-”some of the things you say in that are concerning. I’d be really worried about you if you acted like that in real life.”

It wasn’t really an answer, he knew that, but they were streaming, and he wasn’t sure what the answer was anyway. Correction; he wasn’t sure what the  _ Dream-friendly _ answer to that was anyway.

“Oh. Thanks for worrying about me, Georgie.” It sounded sincere, but off. George didn’t push, and Sapnap swooped in with a discussion about gummies, so the conversation flowered towards other topics until Bad stopped streaming and Dream went to bed and George was about to leave and go to bed as well when Sapnap stopped him.

“Wait, George.” Said boy hummed, rubbing his eyes gently. “About what you said to Dream.”

“Oh no, Sap-”

George was interrupted, and he bristled but let his best friend talk. “Everyone with ears who knows you guys knows you aren’t just friends, okay? So cut the shit.”

“Sapnap.” There was nothing else, just a warning; George didn’t continue. He didn’t know what else to say. 

It was an unspoken rule that they didn’t talk about things like love or crushes unless the person volunteered the information and wanted advice or just to gush. Why Sapnap was breaking this rule, George didn’t know, but he seriously considered just leaving the call for a moment because he wasn’t brave, or at least not enough to deal with it right now.

“Look, Dream, he’s an idiot. He sees things through his perspective and doesn’t get the things that he’s done for you that have really helped you. He doesn’t get it, never has. He doesn’t see the things he does for people, so he just sees it as normal, friendship things. But Dream saved my life, once upon a time, and I’m pretty sure he saved yours too. Just by existing, he saved me, and he doesn’t understand that I will always be grateful to him for that. To him, it was just a nice thing to do.” George didn’t know that about Sapnap, and he resisted the urge to say that he was sorry. Sapnap continued anyway, but George made a mental note to tell Sapnap that he loved him a little more. Sapnap deserved it; deserved the world. “But I see the way he lights you up, and I think it’s cute as all hell.” George laughed, and there was a beat of silence when his laughter filtered out.

“Thanks, I think.” Confusion and the remnants of amusement laced George’s voice, lightening the slightly heavy mood that dragged them both down.

“Yeah, no problem, you fuckin’ simp.” They both laughed at that, George not even bothering to be offended. It was true anyway. ”But seriously, Dream doesn’t see emotions the way they are because he’s an idiot. He definitely doesn’t see how in love with you he is because that’s buried in the ‘don’t think about’ section of his emotions. So you’ve gotta put on your big boy panties and tell him how you feel and get him to think about it, because the Dream we know and the Dream from that fanfic aren’t that different there. He’ll miss you, George, accidentally watch you slip through his fingers because there’s shit he doesn’t deal with to keep going the way he is.” Sapnap wasn’t wrong, and George knew it. Dream would usually keep going until there was nothing left to do and then deal with all the shit he’d collected along the way, which wasn’t exactly the healthiest, but it worked for Dream. So who was he to argue, to make Dream do differently? He was a grown man, he could make his own choices. He would do differently when he was ready.

“I’m not brave, Sapnap,” George said quietly, feeling very small and very afraid of people and noise. He didn’t feel made of flowers. Dream thought he was brave, thought his mom was brave, and his mother was one of the bravest people he knew, that was true. 

But George still wasn’t brave, and he knew it. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t do such a thing. Bravery, huge steps in their relationships, those were Dream’s job and Dream’s domain. Not his. He sat back and enjoyed the ride and watched the driver and his dirty blonde hair from the passenger’s seat of the car. He tended to the flowers, grew them. Dream picked them, expanded the garden, planted new seeds. 

“You’re gonna have to get brave if you want this to work. You can’t wait for him to uncover it and actually work through it and decide to tell you that he’s in love with you. He’d never tell you if he wasn’t 100% sure you also love him, and you’re shit at communicating your emotions, so that wouldn’t happen. He thinks everyone thinks like he thinks, so he’ll think you don’t see him that way.” 

An indignant, “hey!” escaped George before he could stop it, even if that was technically not a false statement. He wasn’t good at saying the words ‘I love you’, especially to Dream, especially on stream. But he loved Dream; of course he did. More than anything.

“It’s true.” Sapnap sighed, and he sounded very tired for the first time that entire night. “I’ve watched you fall in love with him and then be okay with that fact and I stayed out of it because I didn’t know what to say or what to do, but then I watched Dream fall in love with you and just do it so casually he didn’t even notice and…”

George pulled his knees up against his chest and looked at his computer screen over the fabric of his pants and he felt very much like he had when he’d been talking to his mother, before he’d even known Dream or Sapnap. Dream falling in love with him so casually he didn’t even notice. It was just normal to him. Had they always been going like this, on this path destined to end in either romantic love or platonic love?

Sapnap was distressed and George could tell, so he simply waited, pulling up the drawbridge between him and the rest of the world and waiting vacantly. Dream had made him stop doing that, but it was a defense mechanism, so it still came out sometimes. When it got really bad, Dream had to spend hours gently getting the drawbridge to lower back down and for George to actually interact with the real world again. 

Dream never minded, never asked him why he did it or what the point was, never made him say anything he didn’t want to. George never told him, but had learned how to lower the drawbridge himself most of the time, so the matter was resolved, not that Dream knew that. They didn’t talk about things like that after they were done because Dream was too afraid of making George uncomfortable and George was too ashamed to bring it up to Dream. He just wanted Dream to be proud of him; he just wanted Dream to think he was brave.

Sapnap sharly inhaled, and the drawbridge began the tedious process of lowering. “Look, I don’t want you guys to miss your opportunity with each other because I was too afraid to stick my nose in it. You’re perfect for each other, you make sense together, and honestly, I couldn’t picture you with anyone else. So let’s not have a real life Heat Waves and avoid all the goddamn ‘almost having each other but not quite’, okay?” 

George breathed out shakily, confused and unsure. His head ached, and he just wanted to go to bed. He was terrible at feelings, and he couldn’t live with himself if he was the reason Dream was grossed out by him or no longer wanted to be friends with him. George’s mind swirled with possibilities, each worse than the next, and ended up with Dream flying all the way to England to murder him before he managed to calm down. Dream would  _ never _ do that, of that George was absolutely sure. Dream loved him, told him so all the time, and even if it crashed and burned, Dream would always be there. He would always think George was brave, he would always love George, and that was a fact like George’s favorite color was blue.

George was not the person he had been when he met Dream, he wasn’t the person he’d been six months ago. He had grown, the flowers had grown and were thriving. He was thriving, having faced his fears and overcame them for the most part. He was  _ brave. _

Dream was his closet, his darkness, his locked room, his crying baby. Dream was the embodiment of his fear, and he’d beaten it once. He’d done it once, for Dream and Sapnap and his future and his mother and himself.

He was brave. He could do it again. “Okay.”

George went to bed after that and dreamed of Clay and woke up smiling, and resolved to tell him that day; that very moment. Because his dream was beautiful and kind and Clay was warm and big and George  _ loved _ Clay. George loved Clay.


	3. their love was soft and did not hurt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first was after a recording for another ‘Minecraft, but…’ video, and Dream was slow with sleep and lax with contentment and he thought that if there was ever a time that he may take it better than another, it would probably be then. In the early morning light, nodding off into his hand, talking softly and quietly but happily with his best friend. That would be the best time to hear it.
> 
> Dream was falling asleep every other word, but George wasn’t ready to go to bed yet, so he was trying desperately to stay awake for him, and George added it to the list of things that made Dream one of the best people in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is it! hope you enjoyed :]

Three times in the next week had George attempted to express his feelings for Dream, and three times had he failed to get Dream to see or chickened out.

The first was after a recording for another ‘Minecraft, but…’ video, and Dream was slow with sleep and lax with contentment and he thought that if there was ever a time that he may take it better than another, it would probably be then. In the early morning light, nodding off into his hand, talking softly and quietly but happily with his best friend. That would be the best time to hear it. 

Dream was falling asleep every other word, but George wasn’t ready to go to bed yet, so he was trying desperately to stay awake for him, and George added it to the list of things that made Dream one of the best people in the world. 

However, George didn’t even open his mouth, didn’t make a single attempt. He wasn’t feeling brave, he wasn’t ready to do it. He wasn’t ready for the change that would inevitably come, wasn’t ready for the confusion and the possible hurt. He was afraid that Dream would steal his flowers. So he let the moment pass, let Dream go to bed, and resolved to tell him later.

The second time, Dream had given him the perfect opportunity, even if he hadn’t realized it. He’d walked directly into the point with a grin and an oblivious smile, like the absolute  _ idiot _ he was. 

It went like this; a shuffle as George ripped off his hoodie because it was getting hot in his room and they were just hanging out, playing some casual Manhunt that was actually anything but casual and he needed to lower his temperature before he spontaneously combusted. Dream was doing his thing that he did that made George nervous in more ways than one, pulling out his classic, “ _ come ‘ere, George! _ ’ that always made George sweat. He always said the other man’s name with such reverence and emotion Goerge couldn’t even describe it, and George finally worked up the courage to point it out, that time.

“Why do you always say my name like that, Dream?” He regretted asking the question while he was asking it, but he couldn’t turn back, so he just cringed and waited for the embarrassment to be over.

Dream actually stopped in front of George in Minecraft, the hunt seemingly forgotten as Dream answered, “like what?”

There was true bewilderment in his voice; for such a smart man he could be pretty dumb sometimes.

“Like it’s a prayer,” he whispered, almost ashamed to say it. “Even when you’re teasing or taunting me, it’s like it’s a prayer.” He remembered his grandfather used to say the lord’s prayer like Dream said George; like it  _ meant  _ something, like it was something important. 

His grandfather died when he was in sixth form. No one prayed to God anymore in his family.

“I do?” The green blob in Minecraft idly began breaking the dirt beside him, looking down at it intently, and he could just feel Dream’s brain moving faster than the speed of light to replay every time he’d ever said his best friend’s name and whether he said it the way George was telling him he did.

Of course, that was much too close to the things Dream didn’t deal with unless he absolutely had to, and so he came to the conclusion that he did, in fact, say George’s name like that and it did not, in fact, mean anything more than a general reverence for one’s best friend. (Which George wouldn’t have questioned if it weren’t for the fact that it  _ did _ mean more than a general reverence for your best friend, and he knew that.)

“Well, I say everyone’s name like that, don’t I?” George almost took the bait, almost explained that  _ no, he didn’t, _ but it was more trouble than it was worth and Dream made it into a joke before he could anyway. “Unless you  _ want _ me to say only your name like that, Georgie. Is that what you want?”

Dream’s voice had turned jokingly sultry, and George closed his eyes, leaned back in his chair, and allowed it to wash over his senses for a moment before actually using his brain because it needed a second to reboot and reconnect after that display.

He had three options, his brain told him: tell Dream to forget it and and continue playing, go along with the bit and keep playing and let it melt away, or turn it into the opportunity Sapnap had begged him to make and take and tell Dream that yes, he wanted Dream to say his name like that because he was  _ in love with him, goddamn it. _ After five seconds of contemplation, he decided to scrap the third option and just roll his eyes and keep playing.

“Yeah, okay. Whatever.” He hoped it didn’t sound as sullen as it was in his head. George’s character sprung into action and began to hit Dream, knocking him back and causing a faux-angry shout to be heard through the Discord call. The question was soon forgotten as they settled back into what was normal, what was safe, what they could handle. What  _ Dream _ could handle.

The third time was when they were on FaceTime again, George making pasta and Dream propped up against the jar of sauce, laughing and talking and shouting like normal. The black screen comforted George, honestly; or maybe it was the person he knew was behind it.

“George, you’re gonna drop the strainer, pay attention!” Dream shouted at him, voice kind but commanding. George looked down at the loose hold he had on the strainer and blinked.

“Sorry,” he murmured quietly, setting it in the sink and looking at it a moment too long, apparently, since Dream’s tone reflected worry when he spoke.

“Hey, you okay, Gogy?” Dream was gentle, always gentle with George when he needed him to be.

“Yeah, I’m good, sorry,” he said, smiling at the camera to assuage his  _ friend’s  _ fears. 

“Okay,” Dream said suspiciously, and began to babble again, causing George’s fading grin to prop itself up again.

George loved hearing Dream ramble, truly. It was a gift, and a rare one as Dream usually got self-conscious and stopped before he got too deep into it, but he was on a roll for some reason and George felt blessed because of it.

“Dream, I love you,” he said, and he meant it. It didn’t come out as forcefully as he wanted, nor as clear as he needed it to in order to convey that he meant  _ in love with _ and not  _ love like a friend. _ But he hoped that Dream would somehow understand.

Dream didn’t, and the smile in his voice didn’t comfort George, nor did the words that usually threw him into a wall of giddiness. “Oh, I love you too, George.” 

However, George smiled at the black screen that contained Dream and decided that he could handle just being friends. He could handle everything Dream was able to give him and he didn’t need more than the other man was willing to let him have. Which, at the moment, was just a strong friendship. 

So, George rationalized, he could handle being just friends with Dream.

(George couldn’t handle being just friends.)

George couldn’t tell you exactly when he realized he was in love with Dream, or why. He couldn’t point to a specific instance and tell you that the moment had made him fall in love with his best friend. There wasn’t a big revelation, nor a big moment. He just started to enjoy Dream’s laughter more and more, felt his heart get light at Dream’s compliments and teasing and he just found himself wanting to have everything Dream was willing to give of himself and sometimes more if he was feeling selfish. 

He could tell you about the time that he said the words to himself, but it wasn’t very remarkable at all, if he was being truthful. He’d been lying in bed, dead tired and ready to sleep for the next hundred years, when he went, ‘ _ I’m in love with Clay _ ’ in his head, and he’d fallen asleep immediately afterwards. By the time he woke up, it wasn’t scary anymore. It was just a fact, like the fact that his favorite color was blue or Dream was green.

The sky was blue, grass was green ( _ or so people said) _ , and George loved Dream.

So he couldn’t say exactly what had caused it, the feeling in his chest of blooming flowers that kicked in whenever he was around Dream. But it was there, when he told him, and George was made of flowers, and he was brave. He was brave.

“Clay?” George felt very small and very afraid of people and noise. Dream could tell from just the one word, and adjusted accordingly.

“Yeah, Georgie?” Dream was not hard like other people. He did not hurt.

“I’m in love with you.” If he’d said it differently, if his voice wasn’t stripped naked and raw with honesty and passion and just pure _ love, _ he could’ve pretended it was a joke, a bit.

But it wasn’t, and Clay could tell. 

Dream said nothing, for a long while, and he found himself curled around his legs once more, only a week after he’d been in such a position due to Sapnap. This time, they were alone, and the early morning sun was peeking through his curtains. He was brave.

“Yeah.” A sigh, but not one of sadness or tiredness, just resolution. “I think I’m in love with you too.”

George had left soon after that, allowed Dream time to process and dig up and look at everything through his new perspective, and he was still made of flowers. Even if Dream decided that he wasn’t in love with him, if he took it back, George was made of flowers, and he was brave. No matter what happened.

Clay decided that he was in love with him. They talked for a very long time, and Goerge told him all the stories about his childhood and the t-shirt incident and the conversation with his mother and his conversation with their best friend. It did not hurt, and it was not hard. 

He told his mother immediately after they got off the call, barely contained excitement written across his features as he bounced on the balls of his feet. His mother had grinned and scoffed out a, “finally,” and George had laughed loudly. So, so loudly and so, so happily. 

George was made of flowers, and Dream helped them bloom, and George’s mother got the beautiful experience of watching it.

Their love was soft and did not hurt; in fact, it glowed gently, like the sun rising against the mountains or over a field of flowers ( _ George was the flowers and Dream was the mountains; he was kind and strong and dependable and lovely. He was the mountains.) _ . Even when things were hard, even when Dream was losing his mind or George was very small and afraid of people and noise, even when George looked at Dream’s face, which was one of Dream’s greatest fears. Even when they met and they moved in together and even when they fought and yelled and argued to hell. Their love was soft and it glowed, and it did not hurt. Not to George.

Due to this, George’s mother was forever on Dream’s side, and it frustrated her son to no end sometimes. 

“Mum, he’s not a saint, you know,” George had petulantly sighed one day, and George’s mother laughed.

“Yes, I’m well aware, darling, but Dream has done a lot for you and for me. And, he’s very smart and usually right, so I’m just tellin’ it like I see it,” she answered, mirth in her voice.

“I wouldn’t say he’s usually right,” George was torn between being drawling or salty, and his mother’s laughter floated through the phone as a result.

“George, sweetie, he usually is. And you guys are the most in-love couple I know, so you’ll work it out, I know you will. It’s okay to fight, but it’s not okay to let it fester and simmer and turn into resentment. Not that I think you could really ever resent him, but the point still stands.” 

Her son sighed, and she shook her head softly. They were both quite stubborn, but they would make up before she called again in a day or two, she was sure of it. They always did. 

“Yeah, I know, Mum. Thanks,” George said his goodbyes and hung up on her, and she stared at her home screen with the ghost of a smile on her face. They really were perfect for each other. 

They made up not long after the call, and George told his mother first, because he knew that she was the number one supporter of their relationship and therefore deserved to be the first to know. (Sapnap had indignantly snapped that he was taking back his claim of best man at the wedding when informed that George’s mother had apparently occupied that spot. Dream pretended he didn’t mind, and it ended with Sapnap fake crying and wailing obnoxiously because  _ his friends didn’t love him anymore and they didn’t need him and they only needed each other. _ Sapnap was still the best man, in the end.) 

Speaking of weddings, theirs was beautiful. It was big and bright and loud and filled to the brim and happy, because not only did Dream like it like that, but George did as well, which his mother congratulated her son for.

Clay had not only helped George become brave, he’d helped him become made of flowers, and he’d loved George the way he deserved to be loved; endlessly, softly, beautifully, wonderfully, noisily. And maybe you couldn’t fix people, they weren’t computer code with errors in it, but you could love people even in the cracks and errors and failings. And anyone could tell that Dream loved George in the cracks and the errors and the failings. He loved George forever, the way a man like George deserved to be loved, and it was never in doubt, really. They just fit together, whether that be platonically or romantically. Dream would take care of George either way, love him either way. 

George’s mother would always thank Clay for that.


End file.
